Moonlight and Roses
by Fayth3
Summary: Star gazing isn't always romantic but it is always beautiful. NineRose f'ship. Happy!Who prompt Moonlight.


**Moonlight and Roses**

The dark skies glittered with pinpricks of light and two pairs of eyes stared up at the black depths.

"You are such a liar!" Rose laughed out loud, throwing her head back.

The Doctor looked affronted for a few seconds and then grinned, shifting closer to her on the little bench. "I'm telling you the truth."

Rose narrowed her eyes at the short haired man, still unable to tell when he was kidding or not: he had the best poker face in the entire universe. She shuffled back, gripping his hand tightly as the bitter winds from this planet chased around their little oasis.

She gave a little shiver but didn't want to move. It wasn't often that they got to have some downtime between adventures and she loved this time when it was just her and her Doctor.

She stared up at the night sky. "So, that star there is called _Alkalurops_? Seriously?"

"Yeah." His blue eyes twinkled. "It means Shepard's Crook. It's in the ox herd constellation or, it's also known as _Boötes_."

Rose shook her head in delight. "Booties!"

"No: _Boötes_ umlauts please, Rose."

Rose leaned against his leather-clad arm and pointed further away. "What about that one?"

The Doctor squinted. "Ah, that one's called _Nunki_."

"You're making it up!"

"I am not!" He shrugged, jostling their joined hands. "S'not my fault you apes have such terrible imaginations is it? The ones who live there call itXeripedesh."

"And that's better is it?"

"Than _Nunki_? What isn't? Of course the one just on the left of it, see it?"

Rose peered along his long arm to the second star in the constellation. "Yeah, the tiny one?"

"That's the one. Humans call it _Ascella_."

"Well, that's not so bad."

He eyed her. "It translates as 'armpit'."

"Niiice!" Rose snuggled closer as the biting cold whipped her hair into her face. "What about that one?"

He sniffed and thought hard. "_Pulcherrima_."

"No way."

"Yeah, the aliens on it are called Pullcherry's."

"Pull the other one."

"Would I lie to you?" He grinned manically at her and noticed her brief shiver.

He lifted one arm with all the melodrama of someone who was expending great effort on the behalf of someone else and Rose tucked herself into his embrace not seeing his own grin. She snuggled into his arms smelling the warm leather and feeling safe and happy. "Okay, Mr. Impressive, what about that one just there."

He huffed. "Rose, we've been there."

"Yeah?"

"We had to run for our lives."

Rose rolled her eyes. "Well, that narrows it down."

"We nearly got eaten by sentient marshmallows."

"Ahh, that one."

He inched his head closer as if imparting some great secret. "Next to it is a small rock that the locals call Feero. Humans thought they could do better."

Rose bit her lip in anticipation. "Okay, so what do we call it then?"

"_Wazn_."

Rose burst into giggles. "Who comes up with these names?"

"Oh, and you could do better could you, Miss Tyler? Didn't you name your last goldfish Station?"

Rose poked him. "I thought we weren't going to mention that again."

He couldn't stop the grin that slipped across his face. "Must have forgotten."

"Oh, so not so impressive then."

"Oi!" He squeezed her hand. "I'm plenty impressive me."

"Okay." She cast her eyes around the heavens. "That one, is that a moon?"

He beamed. "That's not a moon—it's a space station."

Rose groaned. "Enough with the Star Wars jokes!"

"Who's joking? That's a space station on Axaloti Actually it's more like a pub—I'll take you there tomorrow."

"Great." She laid her head back against his chest. "What about the one next to it?"

He pretended to squint. "Could be _Mira_, could be _Kaffaljidhmah_, hard to tell from here."

Rose pulled at her sleeves and the Doctor reached down, frowning when he realised how freezing her fingers were when they weren't wrapped around his. He brought them up and blew on them gently, his breath warming her fingers as he stared up into the sky. "You know the TARDIS has enough winter clothes to fix the whole of Siberia. Why do you always insist on coming out without gloves?"

"Sorry, mum." She giggled as he poked her.

"I in no way resemble Jackie Tyler, thank you very much!"

"True." Rose allowed his big hands to warm her smaller ones and smiled. "Okay, so that one over there, I'd call it … companion."

"Companion?" He stared down at her head. "It's a small yellow rock with no redeeming qualities or interesting—okay, fair enough."

"Oi!" Rose realised where he was going and half-turned to smack his chest. He gave her a mischievous smirk and pulled her back into a hug.

He rocked her slightly, covering her body from the biting frost that was threatening. Rose couldn't help herself and had to ask: "Is it really yellow?"

"Sort of, yeah."

She could hear the grin in his voice. "Are you lying?"

"Sort of, yeah."

"Well, c'mon then, you're so impressive. You name a planet."

"I could do better than _Zubeneschmali_ at any rate."

She looked up at him. "Seriously, someone called it that?"

"Yeah."

"Lame."

They sat in companionable silence for a moment before the Doctor spoke. "There's a planet out in the Hedratic Quadrant that has this field. It's like walking on red velvet and I mean that posh stuff not the crappy stuff you humans have at the Oscars. Proper velvet with soft hairs that looks darker when the wind blows across it the wrong way. You sit in this field and the whole place is soft and calm, it's like sitting on a r—petal. Now you humans have this flower called a Tankalcig which is exactly what this field is like. I'd call the whole planet that. Tankalcig: Black Magic."

"Black Magic." Rose laid her head on his shoulder. "Lovely. Now that's a proper name for a planet."

He smiled down at her blonde hair thinking of the exotic dark velvet rose. "Yeah. Yeah it is."


End file.
